Hotels.ng secures $1.2m facility

The investment came from international investors including seed-stage technology fund, EchoVC Pan-African Fund and Omidyar Network, the investment vehicle of eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar.

In a sector plagued by dearth of indigenous investors, Hotels.ng has become the only e-commerce company in Nigeria with the most indigenous investment of up to 90 percent, having also received seed investment of $225, 000 (about N36 million) in 2013 from Lagos-based venture capital firm, Spark.ng.

Started in 2013 on the heels of e-commerce revolution in Nigeria, Hotels.ng has spearheaded online hotel booking in the country with over 7,000 hotels listed from across the country.

The company said with the closure on this investment round, the company is now strategically positioned to invest further in its technology capacity and further expansion across Africa.

Speaking on the investment, Founder/ CEO of Hotels.ng, Mark Essien said: “We’re forging ahead into relatively uncharted territory e-commerce in Africa is a massive market to conquer, but there are no hard and fast prototypes from which to follow. We cannot simply replicate western models here. We have to build our own blueprints from scratch, which takes significant investment, both in terms of time and money.

This additional capital will allow us to realise the next stage in our ambitious growth plans, which will see us consolidate our position as Nigeria’s market leader in online hotel bookings, with a view to expanding our service into other African markets.”